Accounting for Liabilities: Conceptual Issues, Standard Setting, and Evidence from Academic Research

Abstract

In this paper, we summarize conceptual issues that arise in the definition, recognition, derecognition, classification, and measurement of liabilities. We also highlight problems in existing accounting standards for liabilities and identify opportunities to refine those standards. Where relevant, we describe evidence from empirical accounting research involving liabilities and identify opportunities for future research. Our objective is to highlight the inconsistencies and controversies surrounding existing accounting standards for liabilities, and to describe the research evidence that provides insights into accounting for liabilities. A better understanding of the current problems in accounting for liabilities and the related research evidence should help standard setters and their constituents in their attempts to improve GAAP, and should stimulate future academic research to shed new light on accounting for liabilities.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 45 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.